


hey man, isn't it poetic

by gggghost (dukeborninfebruary)



Category: DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Explicit Language, Gen, but for how long??, i dunno how to tag it but theyre all just vibing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dukeborninfebruary/pseuds/gggghost
Summary: Wilbur was never cut out to be a ruler, yet here he stands on the walls of a new nation, forged in brotherhood and soon to be bathed in blood. They’re alive, and whole, and ready to protect their newfound independence.Or:A character study of Tubbo, Techno, Niki, Fundy, Tommy, and Wilbur spanning from the start of the SMP to after the election.
Relationships: Eret & Tubbo, Fundy & Nihachu, Technoblade & Wilbur Soot, Tubbo & Tommyinnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 10
Kudos: 109





	hey man, isn't it poetic

At the end of the War for Independence, Tubbo stands with Tommy at the gates of L’Manburg, surrounded by destruction and bathed in sunshine. Bruised and dirtied, but whole, and together, and he knows, for the first time in a long time, that he is home.

At the dawn of a new age, Tubbo stands with Schlatt on the podium, surrounded by hard faces and hissed threats and two watchful eyes that he is sure he can’t escape, and he sees what once was home stretched before him in the blues and grays of night. He has to find Tommy.

During the war, Tubbo works away in a base in the jungle, trading and brewing for hours on end. Sometimes, for supply runs, Eret will visit him, but otherwise he has hours on end to himself, with nothing but the mumbling of villagers and grumbling of mobs in the distance for company.

The war is not for nothing — Tommy’s discs, Wilbur’s freedom, Fundy’s home and Eret’s pride. Tubbo isn’t always sure why he’s there, until he thinks of Tommy’s ragged grin and Eret’s lopsided smile. Fundy passes him a cooked potato and, grinning, points to Tommy, who begins shouting about bugs stuffed into his food. When things are looking bad, Wilbur puts a hand on his shoulder and promises they’ll be alright.

He does have something to fight for. Freedom, and friendship, and Tubbo would never admit it, but maybe he’s there for the chaos as well.

Wilbur looks at him, and Tommy too, late at night and early in the morning when he thinks they can’t see. His gaze is hard and angry and sad and frightened all at once. His eyes are tired, Tubbo notices, and he doesn’t say anything. Wilbur never sleeps enough, and he doesn’t plan to. Tubbo doesn’t bother trying to talk him into it.

(But he does, occasionally, offer to take Wilbur’s place on watch, or finish up his work for him. That grants him softer glances and quiet thanks.)

At his base, Tubbo is safe. He doesn’t have to worry about Tommy, or L’Manburg, or the discs. Later, he doesn’t have to worry about Eret or the pets or Dream or the election.

He doesn’t return to the jungle once Schlatt is inaugurated. 

When Eret betrays them, Tubbo looks at him with clenched fists and a fire in his heart. He watches with the same expression and Tommy and Wilbur run from the podium with quickly-made potions brought to their lips, running from people who, until now, were not a part of L’Manburg, and never fucking will be. Their weapons are turned on the two in the name of Schlatt and they run them out like stray animals, unimportant, nothing to be worried about. Tubbo sees them turn the corner and hopes their invisibility lasts for long enough.

Schlatt calls him his right hand man, holds the mic in his hand and his shoulders straight with a practiced ease Wilbur could never quite master, among all his faked smiles and sly words. 

He gives Tubbo a mission — Tubbo is loyal, isn’t he? Tubbo says that yes, yes he is, and the decision keeps him alive another day. He is loyal, and so when Schlatt whispers to him, through the mic so everyone, even Wilbur and Tommy perched atop Eret’s tower, can hear him, Tubbo picks up a diamond axe in shaky and obeys orders like a good little boy.

This is the problem, he thinks as he sprints down the beach, following imprints in the sand he pretends to think are footprints. Everyone uses him as nothing more than an errand boy. Their mistake.

He returns to Schlatt, after what could be minutes or hours of aimless wandering, and the search is called off. He doesn’t bother hiding his flinch when Schlatt puts a hand on his shoulder, like Wilbur would, and hopes no one can see the way his eyes scan the landscape, always looking for any ways to escape when the time comes.

Tubbo wears his suit and carefully doesn’t crease the tie in the wrong places, and when Niki’s cell is found empty in the morning he will say he had nothing to do with it. Fundy burns the flag, and that night Tubbo sheds tears for what once was and what might never be.

He tears down the walls, and wonders what Eret thinks of him now.

Tubbo takes Wilbur’s offer to be a double agent and is careful to never make a wrong move in front of Schlatt. He copies down coordinates and plans and carefully hides stolen diamonds in his suit pockets. When Wilbur asks him where he got all these resources, he avoids the question and makes a dumb joke so he never has to answer.

He revels in chaos, of course, but he appreciates them more than his flint and steel and so he keeps a careful watch on Schlatt.

Technoblade joins the game, at some point. Tubbo has never spoken to him, but he remembers days spent lounging outside the embassy and strolling along the walls of L’manburg, and thinks that if Tommy trusts him then Tubbo does as well.

The visa is arranged, and when Tommy calls them the people of Manburg Tubbo shakes his head while the others are looking away. He hopes Wilbur notices, and even if he doesn’t, Tubbo appreciates the smile BadBoyHalo gives him for it.

Techno opens up a scrawled letter in a familiar writing and smiles the kind of smile that sends younger payers running. It is a smile of anger, and violence, and most importantly of friendship. He hefts up his sword and throws on his cape and shoves his few others earthly possessions into a bag. The time has come, he thinks to himself in some odd, amused voice, as he sets off down the path away from some other nameless village he’ll never have the privilege of seeing again.

Techno grew up on fairytales an fields of wheat and quiet songs sung in the night. He lives on stories and stolen potatoes and hummed tunes he can’t remember the name of. He fights and farms and follows the sun, takes turns where he wants and methodically refuses to die.

It’s sort of his thing, at this point. Fighting destiny and winning.

(He doesn’t believe in destiny, but don’t tell that to those in towns long forgotten who whisper his name like a blessing and a curse.)

Techno is young when he learns how to hold a blade, to plant his feet and fight like hell. He keeps it up for years, gets a reputation as a monster, a god, an angel of death or blood. Really though, these guys have gotta stop provoking him.

As much as he enjoys it, it gets lonely often. He sleeps on the ground or in a hastily made bed or hammock, he travels across the countryside. Never staying in one place too long, never getting attached to the people who offer him shelter.

Really, Wilbur, Phil, and Tommy became his friends through pure force of will. He brushes them off at first, like he does with every forgettable face and kind voice he runs into on his journeys. He doesn’t make it into a fight — it isn’t one and it doesn’t have to be. But they fight like hell anyways.

Techno learns them slowly — and then before he knows it, he can recognize Wilbur’s true anger and tired snapping, Phil’s genuine charm and ticked off sarcasm, Tommy’s fuming silence and contemplative thoughtfulness. They learn to give him a wide berth when his jaw is clenched and his back is rigid, and he learns to give each of them their space when they seem particularly pissed.

Techno remembers when he first learned to farm, and when there’s nothing else to fight he fights with a hoe and a handful of seeds found in the bottom of his bag. Wilbur comes in and leans against the uneven stone wall, jokes about Techno’s cape always brushing the ground and Tommy’s terrible decorations, and both of them ignore the empty space where Phil should be.

Tommy comes to sit beside Techno one night, legs dangling over the edge of the ravine. The stars should be out, visible from their place below the ground, but the dirt and stone patchwork keeping them hidden from Schlatt obscures the view, and they’re left in the flickering golden light of the torches. It’s sort of nice, more of a home than he’s had in a long time.

When they meet to arrange the visa, Techno watches the room and sees the way Tommy and Tubbo, even on opposing sides of the war, are so very similar. They both scowl at the same bullshit from Schlatt, both open their mouths to speak on the same beat. When Techno makes a badly timed joke in an attempt to keep Wilbur from strangling Schlatt in the middle of negotiating, the boys laugh at the same time and quiet down together.

Techno works in the cave, farming and mining, and when he comes up and wanders haphazardly through enemy territory he runs into a man in a crown and a man in a hood. He travels through his nether portal more times than he ever has and he hopes he ever will have to, and he works on an underwater base where he can keep his work away from Wilbur and Tommy.

He doesn’t want to betray them, and he hopes he can leave before he has too. But he’s chosen his side, and it will always be with the underdogs. So he stows away in his secret workshop and when Tommy asks him what he’s been up to, he mumbles something and turns it into a joke before their conversation gets serious.

He thinks that maybe, he isn’t needed, but he thinks of Wilbur’s tired eyes and Tommy’s strained smiles and he picks up a pickaxe and helps them tidy up the ravine.

They don’t fight, not yet, and so Techno expands his potato farm, and crafts as much netherite gear as he thinks he’ll need, and watches the world through dark eyes.

L’Manburg gains independence, and Fundy stares out at the dawn with a spark in his eye and a bounce in his step. Wilbur is grinning like an idiot, the tired frown he had worn for most of the war forgotten, while Tommy and Tubbo laugh and run around the grounds, studiously ignoring the corner where Tommy had once put his jukebox, before the deal with Dream and after the Declaration of War.

Fundy takes his eyes off the two and looks to Wilbur, watching the man scribble away at whatever paperwork he’s doing now. Even minding his own business, he has a sort of fatherly energy around him, and Fundy can see where the jokes about him being Fundy’s dad come from.

The morning is melodious, and when Niki joins the game Fundy greets her and can instantly tell they’re going to get along. She’s quiet and calm, a threat you would never expect and who doesn’t expect it herself. Fundy is loud and mischievous, a know trickster and trouble maker. She makes sure he doesn’t take a joke too far, and he watches her back when some members of the SMP try to intimidate her into an alliance.

(Not like she needs it. Fundy follows her as she marches away from them and gives a disturbed look back at the three who threatened her. They look mildly terrified, and the weapons they previously held are mysteriously gone.)

Fundy stands beside his friends at the gates of L’Manburg, shiny new, and thinks of nights spent in a nest at the base of a tree. Wilbur tells him calmly to step back, and he does so with an easy smirk on his lips. Of course, Dream has a plan, and when he sees the ground erupt just feet in front of him he grabs Tubbo’s arm and stumbles back, quickly, quickly. Earth rains down around him and he ignores the pain he feels in his tail when something heavy hits it and almost knocks him over.

They make it out alive, they always do.

In a bunker far underground, the Final Control Room, Fundy drinks his invisibility potion and scrambles away from George’s blade. The night is young and there’s so much work to do, he cannot die here. He thinks, as he bandages his arm, hours later, that he is glad to have Wilbur on his side.

The name Eret slides off his tongue like a curse, the title king something poisonous. They don’t talk about it after Tommy’s brief shouting match with the air.

Schlatt is elected, and Fundy denounces his father, the jokes and lies and truths all coming back to sting like salt in a wound. He takes up a blade in L’Manburg’s walls and uses a pickaxe to tear them down. The pit in the bottom of his stomach grows with each block mined, and he doesn’t set his tools down until the walls are gone. Tubbo stands behind Schlatt, looking at the suddenly open landscape with an unreadable expression, and Fundy knows that his triumphant face, such a thick lie, keeps him safe and secure, a shield against however Schlatt plans to attack.

Niki escapes, and Fundy pretends he doesn’t see Tubbo leave the keys to the stables on the ground not far from her cell. He does, however, remind Schlatt of Tubbo’s suspicious behavior and previous connections whenever possible. None of it is enough to cause Tubbo harm, he hopes, but it plants the seed of doubt, makes Schlatt suspicious and paranoid. Fundy’s position in the new nation, Manburg, is solidified, and with every word Tubbo’s distrust of him increases.

The flag burns in night, and when Fundy slides down he pole, past Eret, who tries to desperately so save it, he feels a pang in his heart and struggles to keep his cheeks dry. Niki screams, from wherever she watches in the hills, and Fundy digs his claws into his palm hard enough to bruise it.

He reminds himself that it’s all for the best, and hopes that one day his friends who will never truly trust him again will understand that.

Niki is what some would describe as a gentle soul, and when she hears it she takes it up like a mantle. A weapon or a gift, many intemperate it in different ways. She joins a budding nation, broken and singed but independent, and embraces the contagious smiles of the bloodied band who have fought for their freedom and won it.

She makes friends, and she makes enemies. Her pet is killed and she demands and apology, voice sharp as the knife she holds hidden in her coat. We use our words in L’Manburg, Wilbur tells her, and so she accepts Sapnap’s apology and never moves her hand that grips the wooden handle of the blade.

(She doesn’t use it until after the election, when she slashes at Jack Manifold’s side enough to keep him from chasing her and leaves it there for when they find him in the morning, when Schlatt will find her gone from his little prison.)

Niki learns redstone from Fundy and fighting from Tommy, and when Tubbo asks her she teaches him how to bake bread and pie. Wilbur shares a grin with her over their beat-up dinner table when Tommy and Tubbo run in shouting at each other, and later when Niki sits in a dark cell she remembers that and carefully picks the lock.

She escapes, and she runs and runs until her lungs are on fire and her legs feel like dead weights. She sets up a shitty camp, just for a few hours, and when she smells smoke in the breeze she creeps back to the hills beyond L’Manburg. The flag burns in the sky, a beacon against the dark of night and a warning to those hidden in a ravine many blocks away. Niki screams, a curse or a cry she isn’t sure, and when she sees Fundy marching away with a stiff back her heart clenches and she wishes she had a bow.

Niki never really knew Eret, but as she watches him put out the fire and salvage the remaining tatters of singed fabric she wishes that Fundy would have taken his place and betrayed L’Manburg in the first war for the sake of them all. The sting of betrayal turns into a fire blazing hotter than the flag of a nation ruined once again, and she lets it burn.

Wilbur tells her to come to them, to find Pogtopia and avoid Schlatt’s search parties scouring the area. She gives him a firm no, and makes home in Tommy’s abandoned vacation house. His cow, Henry, or Harold, or whatever it’s called watches her with big eyes and she gives it some hay.

If no one else will start the rebellion, she will have to take it into her own hands, and she knows that Schlatt is foolish enough to never expect it.

Tommy shouts what he thinks, and whispers what he means, and in a dark bunker hidden deep in the earth he laughs a final, wild goodbye to his family and his home.

The discs play a melody through his house, not yet the embassy, just a messy hideout for him and Tubbo to cause trouble from. The discs play again during the war, and then Tommy trades them for the lives of his friends and he tries his best not to dwell on them. Wilbur puts a comforting hand on his back when he finds Tommy sitting sullenly beside his jukebox, and Tommy thinks that Wilbur’s compassion might one day be the end of him.

Tommy never loses his youth, even at the age of 16. He fights in a war and comes out rattled, but alive and kicking. He forces himself into the lives of a lonely traveler and a friendly builder and a tired musician who employs him to monopolize the potions business. He brings Tubbo along on all his adventures and calls him clingy, and when Tubbo stands on the podium and asks, in a voice that is only shaky if you know him well, for Tommy to come with him, Tommy turns and runs and hopes his tears are swept away in the breeze.

The ravine is a cold, lonely refuge from he sinister summer air, and Tommy calls it home with a forcefulness he has used all his life and will continue to use until it becomes the truth. Wilbur is shaky and paranoid and haunted, and so Tommy pleads with Tubbo to be a spy for them and pleads with Wilbur to write a letter to Techno. The two greet each other as friends who haven’t spoken in a long, long time, and Tommy watches it all with his first genuine grin in a few days.

He stands in his vacation home, griping about whatever has annoyed him that day as Tubbo leans on the railing beside him, tinkering with a potion or red stone contraption or whatever else had caught his attention that day. He runs over Dream and almost starts yet another war. Wilbur yells at him, and later offers him ice cream as an apology.

Tommy runs from the election with a now empty potion bottle clenched in his hand and a shout of rage in his throat. The forests are dark and he trips over roots — once, twice, and when he almost plummets into a ravine Wilbur calls it Pogtopia with a true smile on his lips. Techno plants a farm and Tommy builds a railway, and he thinks they just might be able to win.

Wilbur lives on what he can. He builds an empire out of a piece of bedrock, and he builds a nation from four strong boys who want chaos and freedom in turn. He builds a home from a ravine and wonders how long it will be before he’s alone again.

The sun comes up in the morning, and Wilbur sets out on his goal for the day — a simple scheme, another plan to make money and scam the members of the SMP who don’t know him well enough to hate him. He finds two boys tagging along behind him, a familiar face who shouts at all his problems and another who does his work quietly, diligently, and Wilbur can see the look of someone who’s content with the life they have when they could be doing so much more. A fox and a king join their merry band, and when the sun sets in the evening they finish work on the walls of their new nation.

He considers writing to Techno that night, and instead fingers the postcard Phil had mailed him not long ago. He misses them. Techno, his slow, sarcastic remarks and rigid shoulders, and Phil, who was all big grins and rough hugs. They were never content to stay in one place, Not Wilbur, not Tommy, not Phil and Techno. Always on the move, always changing and looking for a new adventure, always refusing to settle down. Wayward souls, a man with a thick Irish accent had called them. It seems to be true.

Wilbur starts out as a petty thief, scamming and stealing his way through life with a guitar on his back and a notebook of shit poetry and song lyrics in his hand. He does what he wants, builds a tower for his very illegal business and names it after said crime. No one even bothers to see if the name is accurate, and Wilbur finds himself sort of disappointed by it. He needs some fun in life.

And that always seems to be the problem. A skyblock challenge, a dead fish and a heavy heart. A secret potions business, once, twice, and a nation torn in two and repaired time after time. The Sky Gods are not very forgiving for decisions made for the sake of fun and thrill, and every time Wilbur walks away from the ruins of another place he wanted so desperately to call home he is reminded of that.

He was never cut out to be a ruler, yet here he stands on the walls of a new nation, forged in brotherhood and soon to be bathed in blood. Tommy stands beside him, down below Fundy scribbles in a notebook while Tubbo and Eret lounge in the grass, laughing with each other. They’re alive, and whole, and ready to protect their newfound independence.

(Later, when Eret presses a button and waves one final goodbye, Wilbur will turn to see Tubbo’s face and there will be a fire in his eyes Wilbur doesn’t recognize, and is sure he won’t see again for a long, long time.)

Wilbur runs a hand over his face and through his hair and along the walls of their new base — not a nation, like Tommy thinks of it. A commune of sorts, a hideout for the three of them. His hands shake, and Techno arrives in his ragged robe and confident words, and for awhile Wilbur feels a little more safe. Tubbo stops by, does menial tasks for Tommy like what seems to be ages ago but could only be a year at most. Back when Dream lived down the path and they had fun playing practical jokes on one another. Before the war, before the walls and the tears and a duel that should have won their independence and never did.

He can’t find it in himself to trust Tubbo, or Techno, or Niki, and especially not Eret. But he enjoys their company when he can, and he hopes he’s chosen the right allies when Techno stutters and almost reveals a hidden base.

Wilbur looks out over his old nation, his old home, as the walls are torn down by his friends and his kid. He sings a sweet melody while Tommy stands beside him, silent and stormy. If they notice each other’s wet cheeks, neither say anything, and they return to Pogtopia with tense shoulders and determined faces.

Schlatt stands at the podium where he was elected and inaugurated, where he shouted out his first decree and watched the chaos unfold. He inspects the golden apple in his hand and knows that, for now, he is winning.

**Author's Note:**

> hello whats up i wrote this in 2 sittings, both after 3 am, and it somehow turned out pretty good. leave some kudos or a a comment if u enjoyed :DD
> 
> title from "downhill" by lincoln
> 
> inspired by miserybug's series "why do you write like you're running out of time?" it is absolutely amazing


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